When incomes fell after the stock market crash of 1929, Americans were forced to make choices between paying for food or paying their medical bills. A 1933 government survey of unpaid bills found the delinquency percentage to be 8.9.percent for department stores, 24.7 percent for grocery stores, 45.1 percent for landlords, .55.6 percent for dentists, and 66.6 percent for physicians. In addition, Americans especially the poor, used medical services less. All this meant lower incomes for doctors. In California, for example, the average net income of doctors fell from about $6,700 in 1929 to 83,600 in 1933 Nationally private practitioners lost 47 percent of their 1929 incomes by 1933.

Source:

Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine (New York: Basic Books, 1982), p. 270